The British Columbia Investment Management Corp. rounded out its fiscal year with a three per cent return, slightly underperforming its 3.3 per cent benchmark.
In dollar terms, the BCI added $17.8 billion as of March 31, 2020, rounding to a total $171.3 billion in assets under management. The three per cent return represented something of a slump compared to fiscal 2019’s performance of 6.1 per cent.
Looking at specific asset classes, public equities performed particularly poorly, with Canadians stocks posting a negative 13.9 per cent return, global stocks negative four per cent and emerging markets negative 11.2 per cent, although all outperformed their benchmarks.
Meanwhile, fixed income fared better with short-term securities returning 5.1 per cent and nominal bonds returning 4.9 per cent. Private debt, however, yielded a negative 2.3 per cent return.
Read: BCI posts 6.1% return for fiscal year, driven by private assets
Private equity performed far better for the fiscal year, at 16.2 per cent, although it underperformed its 22.2 per cent benchmark. Infrastructure showed strong returns at 8.6 per cent and real estate at 8.5 per cent, with global real estate investments (12.2 per cent) driving harder with domestic assets (7.6 per cent).
“In fiscal 2020, we continued to internalize asset management by bringing $3 billion in-house and deploying the capital through BCI’s internally managed active equity pooled funds,” noted a release from the investment manager. “BCI introduced the global fundamental portfolio that is mandated to create a defensive portfolio by investing in quality companies with well-established competitive advantages, as well as the internally managed active U.S. small cap portfolio.”
As far as asset mix, the BCI holds 33.4 per cent of the overall portfolio in fixed income, 32.5 per cent in public equities, 10.7 per cent in infrastructure, 10.4 per cent in private equity, 14.9 per cent in real estate and 3.8 per cent in mortgages.
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